Friction: Those large blades need a lot of wind power to get started. Half a ton of motor, gears and bearings creates a lot of friction which needs considerable power to overcome.

Maintenance: All those moving parts operating under considerable weight and friction, means parts need oiling and repacement. Which is not easy with a massive turbine on top of a 100' tower!

Birds: Yes thats right. Birds! Though the can easily spot the tower and top housing, they cannot judge the turbine blade tips and many end up sliced by the massive blade. Apart from being environmentall unfriendly, it can damage the blades.

Turbulance: In large scale use of conventional wind turbines, planning must be made to account of turbulance created behind the blades. Otherwise the turbine behind will be affected by the air flow of one in front.

Speed: The wind speed needed to drive a wind turbine is higher the bigger the turbine. For example a smaller 1Kw house type needs about 8 mph to start and continue rotating, while those large 100' ones need about 20mph+ to even start.

A Magnetic Levitation Wind Turbine suffers none of the traditional turbines drawbacks. Its a very low noise, virtually frictionless system needing little maintenance. Very importantly, the startup wind speed is about 2mph, even the larger ones! No massive blades means very little danger to birds and low turbulance meaning MagLevs can be close together if needed.

A MagLev wind turbine can be mounted on virtually any flat surface due to its compact design. Unlike other types which must be pole mounted due to danger from blades.

Magnetic Levitation is a system that uses opposing 'full-permanent" magnets instead of bearings for power transmision. This means there is no actual physical contact between moving parts, so there is no friction and nothing to wear out. Magnetic bearing and gear systems are finding there way into many technologies and wind turbines are an ideal application.

Cost for cost, a MagLev wind turbine is less expensive to manufacture than the conventional large blade type and requires very little installation unlike its pre-deceasser. At about a £1000 per Kw, they compare very favourable with the cost of solar panels and are much more effecient in energy production. The most reliable system of constant power is a combination of solar and wind so fewer batteries (if any) are needed for storage as when the sun is not shining the wind is normally blowing.

A frictionless MagLev turbine motor can spin up to 48,000 rpm, though that would need a hurrican. Whereas the big bladed turbines would disintegrate in a puff of smoke at those speeds and require 'yaw' mechanical restraints to prevent exceeding certain speeds.

Maglev wind turbines rotate very easily at 1 m/s (starting wind speed). Their magnetic bearing system eliminates friction and has fewer moving parts than conventional turbines. The blades will not come apart centrifugally like some systems and harmless to birds. The aerodynamic principles of the Maglev turbine means it is not only highly efficient but very quite only producing 40 dB and minimal turbulence. China has several extremely large MW power stations using Maglev technology and its becoming a very popular commercial alternative due to ease of installation, operation, low noise and durability. We believe that Maglev technology wind turbines will become the norm everywhere.